PETER GRIMES (Britten) Opera-Movie BBC UK 1969 Peter Pears

PETER GRIMES by Benjamin Britten
BBC-Studio, London, UK
1969

CAST

Peter Pears: Peter Pears
Ellen Orford: Heather Harper
Captain Balstrode: Bryan Drake
Auntie: Elizabeth Bainbridge
Mrs. Sedley: Ann Robson
Swallow: Owen Brannigan
Rev. Horace Adams: Robert Tear
Ned Keene: David Bowman
Bob Boles: Gregory Dempsey as
Hobson: Michael Rippon
Dr. Crabbe: Monti DeLyle
Simon Laing as the Boy
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Conductor: Benjamin Britten
London Symphony Orchestra
Ambrosian Opera Chorus
Children’s Chorus: Children from Leiston Modern School
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Stage Director: Joan Cross
Stage Designer; David Myerscough-Jones
Costume Designer: Juanita Waterson
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Peter Grimes, Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section “Peter Grimes”, in George Crabbe’s long narrative poem The Borough. The “borough” of the opera is a fictional small town that bears some resemblance to Crabbe’s – and later Britten’s – home of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on England’s east coast.

The work was conceived while Britten was living in the US in the early years of the Second World War and completed when he returned to Britain in 1943. It was first performed at Sadler’s Wells in London on 7 June 1945, conducted by Reginald Goodall, and was a critical and popular success. It is still widely performed, both in Britain and internationally, and has become part of the standard repertoire. Among the tenors who have performed the title role in the opera house, or on record, or both are Britten’s partner Peter Pears, who sang the part at the premiere, and Allan Clayton, Ben Heppner, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Jonas Kaufmann, Philip Langridge, Stuart Skelton, Set Svanholm and Jon Vickers.

Four Sea Interludes, consisting of purely orchestral music from the opera, were published separately and are frequently performed as an orchestral suite. Another interlude, a passacaglia, was published separately and is also often performed, either together with the Sea Interludes or by itself.

Synopsis
Prologue
A Suffolk coastal village, “towards 1830”.

Peter Grimes is questioned at an inquest over the death at sea of his apprentice. The townsfolk make it clear that they think Grimes is guilty and deserves punishment. The coroner, Mr Swallow, determines the boy’s death to be accidental so Grimes avoids a criminal trial. The Coroner advises Grimes not to get another apprentice – a proposal against which Grimes vigorously protests. As the court is cleared, Ellen Orford, the schoolmistress whom Grimes wishes to marry as soon as he gains the Borough’s respect, attempts to comfort Grimes as he rages against what he sees as the community’s unwillingness to give him a true second chance.

Act 1
The same, some days later

After the first orchestral Interlude (titled, in the Four Sea Interludes concert version, “Dawn”), the chorus, who constitute “the Borough”, sing of their weary daily round and their relationship with the sea and the seasons. Grimes calls for help to haul his boat ashore, but is shunned by most of the community. Belatedly, retired skipper Balstrode and the apothecary, Ned Keene, assist Grimes by turning the capstan. Keene tells Grimes that he has found him a new apprentice (named John) from the workhouse. Nobody will volunteer to fetch the boy, until Ellen offers (“Let her among you without fault…”).

As a storm approaches, most of the community – after securing windows and equipment – take shelter in the pub. Grimes stays out, and alone with Balstrode confesses his ambitions: to make his fortune with a “good catch”, buy a good home and marry Ellen Orford. Balstrode suggests “without your booty [Ellen] will have you now”, only to provoke Grimes’s furious “No, not for pity!” Balstrode abandons Grimes to the storm, as the latter ruminates “What harbour shelters peace?” The storm then breaks with a vengeance (second orchestral Interlude).

In the pub, tensions are rising due both to the storm and to the fiery Methodist fisherman, Bob Boles, getting increasingly drunk and lecherous after the pub’s main attraction, the two “nieces”. Grimes suddenly enters (“Now the Great Bear and Pleiades…”), and his wild appearance unites almost the entire community in their fear and mistrust of his “temper”. Ned Keene saves the situation by starting a round (“Old Joe has gone fishing”). Just as the round reaches a climax, Ellen arrives with the apprentice, both drenched. Grimes immediately sets off with the apprentice to his hut, despite the terrible storm.

Act 2
The same, some weeks later

On a sunny Sunday morning (the Third Orchestral Interlude), while most Borough townspeople are at church, Ellen talks with John the apprentice. She is horrified to find a bruise on his neck. When she confronts Grimes about it, he brusquely dismisses it as an accident. Growing angry at her concern and interference, he strikes her and runs off with the boy. This does not go unseen: first Keene, Auntie, and Bob Boles, then the chorus comment on what has happened, the latter developing into a mob which sets off to investigate at Grimes’s fisherman’s hut. As they march off, Ellen, Auntie, and the nieces sing despairingly of the town’s menfolk. The Fourth Orchestral Interlude (Passacaglia) follows as the scene changes.

At the hut, Grimes impatiently demands John change out of his Sunday clothes and into fisherman’s gear. Though it is a Sunday he hastily prepares to set out to fish as he has seen a large school of herring. Grimes becomes lost in his memories of his previous apprentice, reliving the boy’s death of thirst. When he hears the mob of townspeople approaching, he quickly snaps back to reality. He is angry and defiant, stirred by a paranoid belief that John has been gossiping with Ellen, so provoking the anger of the town against him. He warns John to be careful as they climb down the cliff to the boat, but in their haste the boy slips to his death below. When the mob reaches the hut, Grimes and the apprentice are not to be found, so they disperse, curious and suspicious.

Act 3
The same, two days later, night in the Borough (“Moonlight” in the Sea Interludes).

At a town dance, Mrs Sedley tries to convince the authorities that Grimes is a murderer. Ellen and Captain Balstrode confide in each other: Grimes has disappeared, and Balstrode has discovered a jersey washed ashore. Ellen recognises it as one she had knitted for John. Mrs Sedley overhears this and, with the knowledge that Grimes has returned, whips up another vigilante mob. Singing “Him who despises us we’ll destroy”, the villagers march off in search of Grimes. (The sixth interlude, not included in the concert version of the Sea Interludes, covers the change of scene.)

While the townspeople can be heard off-stage hunting for him, Grimes appears onstage singing a monologue, interspersed by cries from the mob and by a mournful fog horn (a solo tuba). The death of his second apprentice has shattered Grimes who sounds panicked, distracted and unfocused. Ellen and Balstrode discover him before the furious townspeople get there, and the sea captain advises Grimes that the best thing he can do is sail out to sea and drown himself by scuppering his boat. Silently, Grimes walks out. The next morning life in the Borough begins as usual as if nothing has happened, though there is a report from the coastguard of a boat seen sinking far off the coast. This is dismissed by Auntie as “one of these rumours”.

Quoted from Wikipedia